Lars Mikkelsen, who played a villain in Sherlock, is to appear in pan-European drama The Team.
Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/Hartswood Films

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is trumpeting the latest attempt to create must-see pan-continent TV by unveiling The Team, a €10m crime drama starring The Killing’s Lars Mikkelsen.

An organisation with no institutional affiliation with the EU, the EBU is billing the show as “a European rendition of well-scripted, nicely-cast and original gritty crime series such as The Wire and the most engrossing police thriller since The Killing.”

Really? Hasn’t Monkey heard this one before? The EBU has cross-border form, as they’d say in a British crime drama – and the alliance of public broadcasters famously produces the Eurovision song contest.

The Team details the work of a Europol unit comprising detectives from Denmark, Germany and France who unite to try and solve the murders of three young women in Copenhagen, Berlin and Antwerp.

Though no British producer is involved – nor a UK broadcaster yet lined up to take the series – the status of English as a European second language means each member of The Team will use their native language in scenes in their own countries, which will then be subtitled in English. When together on screen, they will speak English.

Part funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Media programme, the EBU has the team behind the hit Danish political drama Borgen on board to assist the birth.

Co-produced by 11 media organisations from eight EU member states and involving six public service broadcasters, the script will reflect bona-fide Europol working methods, the EBU says.

EBU director general Ingrid Deltenre said: “It is an ambitious, collaborative project and the success of a series like The Team shows that when public service media and Eurovision come together, they can produce something fantastic.”

Annika Nyberg Frankenhaeuser, EBU media director, added: “There is a solid history of co-production in the genre, but this is the first time European expertise has been shared to such an extent. The broadcasters started out with an audacious experiment which shows we can expect more great ‘pan-European’ co-productions in the future.”

Broadcasters will wait and see before committing to snapping up the series. An EBU spokesperson said discussions were under way with a number of European broadcasters “potentially or likely to be interested in screening the series.”

Monkey hopes the show will be more Bridge and Tunnel, and less L’Auberge Espagnole. A return to the days of messy 1980s Europuddings could give viewers throughout Europe a nasty case of indigestion.